Somewhere Safe
by perhapslater
Summary: He carefully hooked the little finger on his right hand with the little finger on her left. Nobody spoke a word. She stared at the ceiling. He stared at the ceiling. But then sometimes he would stare at her and she was a fantasy kind of beautiful. Oneshot.


**Disclaimer: I wrote this for Jayne (apalapucian). "A lost object" was her idea, and you should read her stuff because it is awesome.**

Many years ago, humanity was battling chaos and strife and pain and hatred with little signs of hope. While the World of Wizardry and Magic were facing their biggest threat in the face of Grindelwald, the Muggles, with all their technology and innovation were fighting a war that threatened to cease the existence of the world as we know it today. Legend has it that in these severe and trying times, many of the greatest and the least prejudiced of the World of Magic came to a conclusion: Humanity cannot lose to power hunger on two fronts. And so a man, a wise and generous man with a fondness for trickery, proposed that Muggles should be assisted, not to win the war but to stop it. There was uproar in the World of Magic, how could they re-allocate resources when Grindelwald was so clearly threatening the balance of their society? So they came to a solution, they prioritized the threat of Grindelwald ahead to the Global War, while the Goblins and Witches and Wizards and higher magical authorities all hatched up plans to stop Grindelwald; the lowest form of magic, the magic of the House Elves were sent to Muggles for aid. The House Elves were ordered by the Ministry of Magic, to do whatever that they had to, to stop the largest land theatre war in recorded human history.

However, there is something peculiar about the magical qualities of the House Elves, and few Wizards and Witches have seen it over the years. They might have been considered inferior, but these meek creatures can create a sort of magic that perhaps, Merlin himself couldn't have. As the legend goes, these House Elves decided to stop this war, not by any foul play or any grand strategies of battle, rather they gave humanity what it needed the most then – Hope. They took what remained of hope and decided to preserve it _somewhere safe, _in the human soul. They brought literature back to life, they made art beautiful again. They used their magic to make humans see the beauty in words and colour and cultures. Suddenly there were amateurs who began to dream of painting in the streets of Paris, again and there were kids who sneaked away stacks of paper in grand book burnings. It took some time but it worked, and during the aftermath of World War II, when groundbreaking political breakthroughs occurred, humanity also found the time to paint and write and sing and dance and love and hope again. It took a few years, but the Muggle World started to come together, at least on a micro level. These House Elves created a magic that reignited love in the world.

He heard the knock on the door, and propped open an eye. Letting out a noise, which was intended to be a sigh but somehow got lost midway and arrived at the St. Sob station, James Potter threw away his blankets, and blindly searched for his glasses and wand before getting up from his bed and walking towards the door of the dormitory. All he needed was some peace and quiet. And a bed. Some blankets. Sleep. He needed sleep. If James Potter ever had to give a piece of advice to a large group of people, it would be something along the lines of, _You are not as suave as you think, you can't stay up with your friends all night and conduct a Quidditch practice at six in the morning expecting yourself to be little Mr. Sunshine._ His head hurt and his body ached and, it was a Saturday. Next prefects meeting, guess who is going to suggest a detention-if-you-wake-someone-up-before-noon-on-Saturday policy?

And finally after he felt satiated with all that self-pity, James Potter opened the door to be met by a blurry view of Lily Evans' with her fist raised in the air, prepared for another knocking session. He put on his glasses

James cleared his throat, "You can put the hand down now, Evans." His voice was groggy from all the sleep that he told himself he deserved.

"Oh right, sorry!" The redhead lowered her hand and rubbed it against her jean-clad thigh. James raised an eyebrow, crossed his arms and leaned against the door frame clearly waiting for her to say something. "Yes, James," she begins, "I was wondering if you'd have the Prefects' Schedule for this term with you?"

The man addressed, scrunched his eyebrows in question. He definitely heard what she is saying; but his brain was taking a little too much time for his liking to process it. No, James Potter wasn't the brightest of the crayons when over powered by sleep. _Oh don't judge, neither are you. _

"Err," Lily interrupted the already trying task of word processing, "James? Prefects Schedule. This term? We made it together? Inside? Is it?" She asks gesturing wildly. _Oh now he gets it._

"But wasn't it with you? You told me I would lose it." James reminded her, tucking his wand into his back pocket.

He sees her holding back a sigh before she says, "Oh right, of course!" with badly feigned nonchalance, and began to walk down the stairs still talking, "must have forgotten that."

Except she hadn't and Lily Evans couldn't act to save her life. Also, if seventeen months of some real solid friendship taught James anything, it was to process Lily Evans' gestures in a sleep deprived mind. He followed her downstairs. Sleep can come later.

"Lily?" he asked, she turned to face him with a smile so tight, he was sure it must be hurting her face, "Where is the Prefects' Schedule, exactly."

"Oh don't worry about it," she added in a little hand gesture here to appear much more collected than she was feeling, "it's somewhere safe."

James raised an eyebrow again, which in Lily's honest opinion he really shouldn't because she is in a mess and a confrontation with a smug James Potter isn't very high on her to-do list right now. "Well?"

"Well, what?" she asked, smile still intact.

"Where is it?" He cues.

"It's somewhere safe, James."

"Where somewhere safe?" He asks, the corner of his lips beginning to flutter.

"Okay see, that's the best part," she bended her knees a little, balled the fists and bit the inside of her lower lip before continuing, "I kept it somewhere really safe, except now I have forgotten where." The last part is a flurry of words and she tightly closed her eyes at the end of the confession.

James give into the fluttering lips and lets out a chuckle. "Oh Lily! Lily, Lily, Lily!" She opened her eyes at the sound of her name. She liked it, the way it rolled from his lips and come to float between them waiting for her to catch.

He moved forward and threw an arm around her shoulders, this is normal. This is all normal. Sometimes her leg rests on his and sometimes he hugs her and sometimes she ruffles his hair and at other times he brushes away the strands on her face and even though they haven't noticed it yet, they have begun leaning against each other after tiring days. But it's normal. Physical contact between Lily Evans and James Potter was part of Hogwarts' normal now. Hand still on her shoulders, James Potter proceeds to descend the staircase, his thumb rubbing her shoulder slightly, "Remember that time, seven years ago you got a letter from a school offering to teach you," he lowered his head and he whispers on her skin, "magic?"

They are in the Gryffindor common room now and oh boy, if looks could kill, the Potter bloodline would have ended right there. Unaware of this, James Potter reached into his pocket to pull out his wand, flicking it with a flourish he says, "_Accio Prefects' Schedule!_" An entire minute of silence and Lily's look of death later he finally mutters, "Hang on…"

"Yes, well, thanks a lot for that display of confidence in my sensibilities James," Lily said slipping out from under his arm and patting him on the chest. She proceeded to the staircase leading to the girls' dormitory.

"But why didn't the summoning charm work?" James muttered quietly, more to himself than her.

She spun on her heel - her socks were mismatched James noticed - and replied, "Oh don't look so wounded, it didn't work for me either." She began to turn to the staircase again when James interrupted.

"Where are you going?" He asked.

"To look for it, we had to hand it in to McGonagall today, before noon," she reminded him.

"Noon is forty seven minutes away."

"Yes, James. I am aware. Thank you." The tight smile was back.

He recoiled.

"Well, come on then," she finally urged. "Help me find it!"

"Can't really go into your dormitory, Lily. Godric didn't trust me enough."

"Oh stop with the theatrics, I don't have the time," she replied, "Go get your broom." And with that she ran up the stairs, two at a time. James smirked, shook his head and made his way over to the other set of staircases to retrieve his broomstick.

If people were art, she was the works of an amateur on the streets of Paris. Rough around the edges and never subtle. A man headed for The Louvre, might not notice it, but the works of the amateurs on the street were so much madder and so much bigger and so much more magnificent than anything they could find in a well reputed society-approved Museum. Museums are boring but _art_, and art like the one who just sprinted up those staircases, oh it takes your breath away. And nobody understands that better than the person sitting with a piece of charcoal in their hands, the view of Paris from a sidewalk and a list of unpaid bills. And things they create, oh all those insane and powerful and golden things they create. They bleed of all the impossibilities and all the insecurities. And beneath all that so much potential and passion and untapped energy to blow you off your feet. Paintings like these might not be framed and hung in famous art galleries because they weren't a part of a lineage of proclaimed work, but they were there. And they were preserved in the human soul. They were the hope that gives birth to symbols of love.

Lily Evans was like a piece of artwork that all those years ago had stored hope in itself. It was the House Elves' _somewhere safe_.

And Lily Evans would not understand a word of what we talk because she was eighteen and real and eighteen year olds don't talk like that and she was not an art enthusiast and she was more concerened about her NEWTS at this point than some amateur in Paris and there is a war outside the windows that wants to eliminate her kind and James Potter did all sorts of beautiful things to her heart and she had a Prefects' Schedule to submit. Lily Evans was not art, she was a girl.

James bumped his head on her window sill as he entered her room, "Lily, where do you think –" he paused then and took a look at the battleground in front of him, "I don't think I can even see you, Evans let alone a piece of parchment."

"Huh?" She asked, finally coming into view. She was sitting on her knees behind a bed, and James figured she was probably searching for the schedule under it. He finally climbed inside and she ducked back down.

"If we could just clean this place a bit, maybe it'll be easier to look for it." He suggested, skipping over someone's pillow.

"Yes James, let's put everything back where it was so that we can begin messing up the place again." Lily's muffled voice came from under the bed.

Silence.

She came back up and looked at him. He looked at her right back.

"Do you err, want a formal invitation?" She asked.

"We could just draft a new one, you know?" He suggested as he made himself comfortable on the bed whose underside Lily was just scouring through.

"No we can't. I have thirty minutes, not the prefects' class and activity schedule." She was turning pages of her copy of _A Guide to Advanced Transfiguration_. And then when nothing came out of it, she allowed her frustration to get to her and threw the quite heavy book on her bed, narrowly missing James. She clutched her hair in pure annoyance and let out a dry sob. And James let her because she needed that, because he was still sleepy, if only slightly and because you never interrupt Lily Evans when she is angry. She let out a sigh and threw herself on the bed. James followed, reclining his body until he was lying next to her.

He carefully hooked the little finger on his right hand with the little finger on her left. Nobody spoke a word. She stared at the ceiling. He stared at the ceiling. But then sometimes he would stare at her and she was a fantasy kind of beautiful.

"We could ask for more time, you know?" He tried to reason.

"We didn't submit the Christmas Leave Prefects' Schedule on time either." She replied, her voice heavy.

He sighed and ran his free hand through his hair.

She sighed and tightened the grip on that little part of flesh between them that's hooked and touching.

"So you have no idea where you might have kept it to keep it safe?"

"I turned this whole room upside down." She replied dejectedly, "So much for being Head Girl."

"Well, to be fair it's just a lousy Prefects' Schedule. We'll ask for more time."

"No we won't."

"We won't?"

"We won't."

"I thought we didn't have the time to write a new one." James asked suddenly confused.

"No, but we do have the time to look for it." She replied, her voice suddenly not as heavy as it was mere minutes ago.

She sat up straight. James noticed, their fingers were still hooked. She turned to look at him, her face etched with determination. Their fingers were still hooked. And when she used her free hand to poke him in the thigh so that he would sit up, James smiled because _their fingers were still hooked._

He sat up, placed their entwined fingers on his thigh and raised his eyebrow.

"Twenty four minutes to noon," he stated.

"The schedule is in this room," she responded.

James looked around. And then he waited a little. And then he looked at Lily and found exactly what he knew he would. "Okay, what do you want me to do?" He asked finally.

"Think James, think." She got up from the bed to stand in front of him and their fingers weren't tied together anymore, but that's okay because they were a few moments ago and Lily knew that. "Look around you and notice."

James scrunched up his eyebrows a little.

"This room is a mess." She said.

"Well it's hard not to notice _that!"_

"And the summoning charm isn't working."

"Noticed that too, Lily. And I – oh!"

"Yes!"

"It's pressed underneath something –"

"And it's clearly not the books because those I have checked and –"

"It can't be anywhere in the mess because –"

"I kept it supremely safe."

James stood up excitedly and suddenly he was towering over her and he was so close and they only had twenty odd minutes till submission and still no schedule but those concerns were secondary because here they were, so close and so excited and so completely and utterly in the very center of some emotion that they can't quite place and oh! They would never confirm if they were in love with each other at that point, because_ they just didn't know_ but they also won't deny it. And no, they hadn't had their first date and they have absolutely no idea when they'll have one but both of them knew that they will someday. And they haven't kissed the other but at this point they would rather not. Because kissing the other one might be brilliant but knowing that they want to kiss you just as much as you want to kiss them, raised their heartbeat in that fantastically delicious way.

"Twenty one minutes till submission." James whispered.

"We'll find it." She replied equally quietly.

And _then_ they broke gaze.

"We have to check for it under something heavy that has not been ruffled yet and will be a safe place to put a piece of parchment under." Lily pieced it all together.

James nodded and looked around. And then finally his gaze landed on Lily's bed, "Could you have kept it under the mattress?" He asked.

"Why would I keep it under the mattress?" She questioned in reply.

"I don't know Lily, I wasn't the person who kept it safe enough to lose it." He replied smirking. She could have punched him for this. And then she could have laughed and kissed him for this too. And those two responses were too radical to be drawn out of Lily Evans by a simple dry remark. But that's the thing about this boy in front of her, he brought out her worst and he brought out her best. And somewhere along the way Lily had felt that she wouldn't prefer it any other way.

If people were Literature he was the works of a mind that was challenged and exhausted. An array of words. A physical covering which shelters the passions and the sheer desire to showcase it. Complex, difficult and clever. There would be some who wouldn't even try to read it. They would just be intimidated by the strength of it. And then some, who would falsely boast they have read it, understood it and enjoyed it. But they know that they are lying, for they would have never understood it. And understanding it wasn't the way to enjoying it at all. And then there will be a strange specimen of the human soul who would dare open it and get so overwhelmed by it that she would close it and feel her heartbeat race. And then she would open it again. And she would open it over and over. Loving the adrenaline rush. And other days she would be so frustrated by it because she just doesn't feels she understands. And every time she would open it, she would read through the same pages over and over again, until they are yellowed and crumpled and every one of those times, she would understand something new that would defy everything she had understood before that. It would make her head spin and her heart race. She would never completely understand why it does what it does to her, and it will probably her favourite piece of literature.

James Potter was like a piece of literature that all those years ago had stored hope in itself. It was the House Elves' _somewhere safe._

And James Potter would not understand a word of what we talk because he was seventeen and real and seventeen year olds don't talk like that and he claimed that he read to enjoy not to impress anyone with his intelligent choices in literature and he was more concerned about his NEWTS at this point than some bloke in a room pulling his hair over character development and there is a war outside the windows that goes against everything that is good and human and Lily Evans did all sorts of beautiful things to his heart and he had a Prefects' Schedule to submit that really was lousy and unimportant. James Potter was not literature, he was a boy.

James heaved the mattress on Lily's bed upwards and she bent down to look under it only to be met with disappointment. "_Accio Prefects' Schedule!" _ She said half-heartedly, just in case she missed something. She hadn't. And under the mattress was not the safe place that she had kept it.

Her shoulders slouched as James kept the mattress back down from where he picked it.

"That was no good," he remarked.

"But it's still here, I know!" Lily insisted, "We just have to keep looking."

"You checked in your trunk?" He asked.

"No I didn't. I _bought_ the mess, you see in front of you." Her voice was scathing and James just narrowed his eyes at her.

"I wasn't the one who misplaced it." He chided.

"No. You were the one who questioned my intelligence," she complained, "twice."

James didn't reply. She didn't say anything either. And the two of them stood there in grudged silence at a loss of ideas.

It was a few moments before Lily threw James a sideway glance and took three strides towards her trunk.

"You said you already checked there." James said as he watch her squeeze her fingers between the carpet and the bottom of the trunk.

"Well, I didn't check _under_ it." She said, as she got into position to lift the trunk.

"Why would you keep it under the trunk?" he asked perplexed.

"Because I was the one who kept it safe enough to lose it." She lifted the trunk then, peeped under it and was greeted with a sinking feeling churning inside her gut. She put it down and kicked it in frustration. She stubbed her toe. That hurt. Her eyes watered. She refused to show it.

"You could have just levitated it, you know?" She heard James from behind her. She turned around to face him and gave him the most murderous glare that she could muster. He didn't recoil or wince or shift his gaze. He kept looking at her, biting the corner of his lips to stop himself from smiling. The dimple on his left cheek tried to make sneaky appearances as he did his best to keep it hidden.

Lily let out a laugh. And the dimple won.

It took a few moments for the laughter to subside and then they were back again at the obvious, "So what else around here is a safe place to keep pieces of parchments under?" James asked, raking his hand through his hair.

"What was I even thinking?" Her eyes were closed as she pinched the bridge of her nose. "I mean, it was just a Prefects' Schedule, I could have just filed it!"

"Have you _checked_ your file?"

Lily scowled, "Thrice," she warned.

He shut up.

"I don't see anything else around here that could possibly hinder the summoning charm," she says right before James eyes land on the pillow he had previously skipped to get to her. And he is not exactly sure why would anyone keep a Prefects' Schedule in their pillow case but then again he is not even sure why would anyone prefer honey over sugar as their sweetener but Lily does.

"If we just levitate everything in the room and _then_ try the summoning charm," Lily was rambling at this point, an James would have replied had he not been afraid to tell her that he thinks she kept it in her pillow because that just makes it sound like he is questioning her sanity, "but that would require a very powerful levitating charm," she continued to ramble without paying any attention to James. He didn't mind though, as long as she didn't notice that he was searching her pillow for a Prefects' Schedule, he should be fine.

He put his hand inside the pillowcase and groped around a little before his ring-finger rubbed against something scratchy. He snorted in disbelief. Gripping it between his thumb and forefinger he pulled it out.

"I don't think we have enough time," he heard Lily say from behind him, "we could just ask for an extention –"

He turned around to look at her, Prefects' Schedule in his hands, "Lily –"

"I mean she'll be a little cross –" She was biting her nails now and her eyes were trained on the ground.

"Err, Lily?"

"But we'll tell her what happened and I am sure –"

"I found it."

"We just need – what?" She asked, finally raising her eyes to look at him. He raised a parchment a bit higher.

"Found it?"

What happened next is hard to recount, James saw a ball of freckle and red and green rush towards him before he felt two limbs behind his neck, and by all the weight on there, he was sure that Lily's feet weren't on the ground and before he could place his hands on her back, she had pulled away. Her hands were still around his neck, she was back on her feet now and her eyes were alight with relief. You know that feeling when you _barely_ meet the deadline, but you _do_ make it and it feels like you've been birthed again? She felt it. And so he felt it.

"Eleven minutes to noon," her arms were still around him as he breathed the words.

"You're a star," she replied, "an incredibly annoying star."

"I am also the guy who fancies the girl who keeps the Prefects' Schedule in her pillow," He said, "and I don't know how I feel about that, to be honest."

She didn't pull her arms back.

Lily knew he fancied her. James knew that Lily knew he fancied her. James also knew that she fancied him back just as much. And this wasn't the first time one of them had said it to the other. But something which had been simmering within them long enough, had finally picked up heat. And one day, one of them will decide to do something about this whole fancying business.

And that day will set in motion a series of events which will allow this girl who was rough on the edges and never subtle and this boy who was complex and difficult to come together as a sign of hope and create the symbol of love that will stop a war. Just like the last time. But they would never understand what we talk about because they are teenagers in the midst of a war and doused in love. And they are real.

Three minutes to noon.

**Reviews would be real nice!**


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